Happy Birthday WWW

The WWW just turned 20 today and we couldn’t imagine life without it. I’m talking about the World Wide Web developed by Tim Berners-Lee and other European scientists so they could exchange their research information around the world. I wonder if they ever imagined how pervasive it would become. I mean if we want to know the weather forecast, we don’t wait to hear it on the radio or TV news. If we want to learn more about a health symptom, we no longer have to wait to see the doctor. If we want to communicate with our hometown family and friends, we don’t have to make several long-distance telephone calls. If we want a special recipe for unusual banana bread, we don’t have to personally ask a lot of people and then write it down. If we want to learn how to make a beautiful flower arrangement, we don’t have to take a six-week course. If we want to read an excerpt from a book, we don’t have to go to the library or bookstore. If we want to send photos of our children to our families, we don’t have to wait to have the pictures printed first. If we want to renew our driver’s license, we don’t have to go to the DMV. If we want to check our bank account balance, we don’t have to go to the bank or make phone call. If we want to go shopping, we don’t have to go to the mall. If we want to know what to do on our next vacation, we don’t have to hire a travel agent. If we want to meet other people, we don’t have to go outside of our homes. If we want our thoughts and ideas to be known, we don’t have to hire a PR firm. (So I could go on and on with this blog, but I won’t.)
If you want to do any of these things I’ve mentioned, you can accomplish them on the World Wide Web.

Build it and they will come?

We had a productive meeting, but spent most of it talking about blogs. Turns out our senior scientist has a blog. I couldn't find it doing a search, but now have it with the url emailed to me. We are building an online media center to include our news releases and to link to industry blogs and other industry resources such as research and consulting web sites. Well, one of those research sites wants you to be a client (read "pay $$") to use their logo and link to them.
We do have some technical reports that we can use on our online media center room. We just need to get approval from the customer. So many obstacles.
We have a list of next steps including identifying our buyer personas and setting up an RSS feed.
One person said we should try to get on the first page search for the technology terms of our business. Here's where it's almost impossible for a small company to use a generic term and expect to be on page one. We need to create more specific or possibly niche terms in order to appear on the first few pages of search. So, that is one of our action items--to come up with specific search terms that our buyer personas would use. This should be interesting.